


The Tragic Hero

by TheQuietDom (cutiefemdom)



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Child Abuse, Dark, Drugs, Fix-It of Sorts, Kissing, M/M, Slow Burn, Suicidal Thoughts, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-27
Updated: 2020-03-28
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:55:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23333473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cutiefemdom/pseuds/TheQuietDom
Summary: Out in the streets he was a pristine example of a student with his life together. Hair always done, suit in place, smile as bright and lifeless as ever.At home he wasn't that perfect.Kurusu discovers the darker side of Akechi too soon and it changes everything.
Relationships: Akechi Goro/Kurusu Akira
Comments: 10
Kudos: 211





	1. Justice

**_Chapter 1: Justice_ **

* * *

Falling from grace was the staple of every Greek tragedy, was it not? 

People clamoured in their seats to watch the detective prince fall off of his coveted high horse. Happily watched his misfortune unfold as the peripeteias hit him in the face. It was a form of catharsis, Aristotle would have explained. It was the hero's fatal flaw coming back to bite him in the jugular like an untamed beast. Blood-thirst for revenge wasn't a docile kind of animal.

Akechi stared at his phone in the dark of the room and tried not to care that the Phantom Thieves suddenly held the adoration of Tokyo's citizens. Fame, love, respect: they were all unnecessary in his pursuit of justice. (Getting revenge would be the sweetest justice.) Akechi stood up and his phone fell to the wayside on the couch cushions. There wasn't a light on in his apartment but the outside lamps and stoplights made golden squares light up his blank ceiling and walls. The city made sure to remind him that he was never truly alone. There was always a bustling, urban hellscape in need of saving right outside his doorstep. No matter how hard he tried—how hard anyone tried—there would always be those who slipped through the cracks. People who would be found limp by the side of the crowded streets with needles in their arms from overdoses or dead-eyed in strip bars with men three times their age on top of them. People got lost all the time. 

Nobody could fix that, not even if they defied the assumed logic of the universe. 

He flicked on the bathroom lights and winced at the bright glare. The sink cabinet squeaked when he opened it and the sound always grated on his nerves but he never got around to changing it. Out in the streets he was a pristine example of a student with his life together. Hair always done, suit in place, smile as bright and lifeless as ever. That was how they liked it, he'd learned somewhere along the way. (Probably between the ages nine and twelve.) They didn't like his real smile. They liked it when it looked too bright, insufferably pleasant, like he was forcing himself to indulge them. Maybe it was because he was and they found some perverse kind of pleasure in being reminded of that fact. 

At home he wasn't that perfect. 

The person staring at him in the mirror wasn't Akechi. It was Goro. Goro wasn't allowed outside. He wasn't presentable enough to be seen with his eye bags and freckles and sickly complexion from days of overworking and years of not getting enough sleep. Mottled remains of bruises stained his right cheek from the back of Shido's hand and a beauty mark marred a small spot under his eyebrow. Goro was plain and pitiful while Akechi was a child prodigy who could do no wrong. People only liked the attractive outcome and hated being reminded of the effort. It wasn't relatable to work yourself to the point of throwing up three times a week. 

With practiced motions, Akechi dabbed foundation onto his face and smoothed it out with his fingertips. A little was enough to cover his eye bags and freckles. A lot was needed to hide the fact that he was probably not going to live to see himself turn twenty. After a second of deliberation he also put some rouge on his cheeks because the man he was meeting that night was one of Shido's "friends" and he knew what that entailed. The act of getting ready was annoying when he knew that it'd be wiped away in the next hour or two. Appearances still had to be kept though, even after his dip in popularity. He took out the enema from where he kept it under the sink and sighed as he prepped himself mechanically, letting the water sit in his insides as he thought about a case that had been dropped on his desk that morning. A double suicide. Two friends jumping off a bridge together into the icy waters under the Tokyo bridge. 

Something about it made Akechi's chest hurt. 

Not because it was sad. 

He was jealous. 

Death was an inevitability to him. He was practically living on bought time, using up the last of his credits as he staggered through a desert towards his end goal. There was an oasis nestled between the dunes and after he drank all the water he'd die with a smile. He would stand over Shido's dead body and spit in his face. After that he didn't care what happened to him. He was just a body. Without a purpose he'd be less than human. Jumping from a bridge would be an easy escape then. He'd stare up into the sky as he fell and maybe it would finally let him forget everything. 

After fifteen minutes of his stomach cramping he went to the bathroom, letting all the water release into the toilet as he droned out the sounds with his thinking. A final inspection later and he changed into his clothes. Nothing too fancy—casual enough to be a little seductive—but put-together enough to make it feel like it was actually something special to bed the detective. Like half of Shido's shareholders hadn't already. No matter what the reality was, they always liked him best when he played the part of an inexperienced virgin. All the better, it meant he didn't have to actually do anything. Few of them even trusted him to give an acceptable blowjob. Their loss. 

Akechi was ready. Goro was left at the door as he stepped into his shoes and left the tiny apartment. 

He checked his phone for the address again. It was a bar he'd never been to before, messily written on the back of a report Shido had handed him at lunch. It was an efficient message of "finish reading these before 4pm and show Mr. Haruto a good time at 8pm." Both were simple orders and like a dog Akechi jumped to obey. Shido probably knew how much Akechi wanted to wring the life from his throat but acting like the coldblooded murderer he was wasn't going to make his dreams of parricide come to fruition any easier. Playing the Good Boy was more efficient. 

The train swayed him as he kept his head low and eyes glued to his phone screen. Off to his right a group of girls were eyeing him up and down like they weren't sure if he was who they thought he was or not. He kept them guessing by leaning against the doors, hiding his face in the shadows of the train. A swerve almost bumped him into a salaryman but he caught himself on the metal pole just in time, narrowly avoiding his head smashing against it. The girls giggled and he felt a hot wash of embarrassment rise to his face. They probably were just laughing to themselves and hadn't even noticed his slight mishap. Then again, it felt like there were eyes on him all of the time. Even as he walked down a secluded alleyway towards Shinjuku he couldn't help but keep to the sides like it would keep the gazes off of him. Maybe it was God. Akechi wasn't a religious person, but if heaven really existed then he was going to be judged not unlike how he judged the criminals he brought in to the station. Wrath was a sin, was it not? 

A drunk man stumbled past him and he almost felt ashamed by the way his hand instantly curled around the knife he kept in his pocket. _I could kill him and nobody would ever know_ he thought idly as he walked out into the more crowded streets of Shinjuku central. 

Sometimes he saw a flash of blond hair in a crowd and remembered his mother. Watched with mute horror as the face of a perfect stranger morphed into the soft one he knew from when he was a child. She had smelled like cigarettes, cheap perfume, and sex but underneath her skimpy jacket she had also smelled like home. Home. It was a tenuous concept. A place could be home. So could a person. He'd lost his home the day he walked into their dingy apartment and stepped into a puddle of blood with his new sneakers. A home can disappear with a person sometimes. Suddenly all the walls are just walls and the floors are floors and nothing feels familiar. 

He bit his tongue to forget that particular memory and stepped under the neon purple sign of a place called the Crossroads Bar. It was almost gaudy how red, black, and pink the interior of the building was. Akechi put on his best television smile as he hung up his coat by the door and identified his "friend" for the night sitting at the bar. He slid onto the velvet barstool smoothly and crossed his legs as he ordered a Mojito. Simple, refreshing. The bartender gave him a once-over but he refused to be intimidated despite being two years below the legal drinking age. The man next to him interrupted their stare-off with a gruff "he'll have a Negroni." The man flashed his black credit card next to his badge and the bartender narrowed her eyes before preparing the drink. 

Negroni. _He really wants to get me drunk_ , Akechi mused as he let his foot brush against the—apparently police chief's—ankle. 

"So, tell me about yourself," Akechi said pleasantly, resting his head on his palm. 

"Nothing to say," was the dry reply as the man finished off his second beer. The conversation ended with those three words and Akechi knew better than to try to press for more. Some men just wanted to get him drunk, drag him to a dirty hotel, and have their way with him and nothing else. Fine with him. He took a tentative drink when his cocktail was slid in front of him and steadfastly refused to look the bartender in the eyes. The man next to him watched as Akechi drank and he knew it was to ensure that he didn't slight-hand any of the alcohol anywhere. He probably would have tried. The drink burned going down and he paused half-way through to catch his breath. Sometime while he'd been drinking the old man's hand had traveled to his thigh and he was steadfast on finishing his drink before he was groped in public. 

Briefly, the image of him slicing off every one of the man's fingers crossed his mind and it replaced the weaker, more shameful part of him that wanted to recoil and hide in the surely disgusting bar bathroom. He raised the glass back to his lips as he stared at the empty bottles above the bar. 

The door to the bar opened and Akechi almost dropped the glass when he recognized the thick, black glasses and mop of equally black hair. _Fuck. What's a high school student doing here?_ He snapped his head to the side and tried to think of the fastest way to get him and the touchy old man out of the bar undetected. He downed the rest of the drink in a single gulp and didn't even care about the way it made his eyes water. "Let's get out of here," he whispered, a coy smile playing on his lips. 

The police chief across from him raised an eyebrow before a more sinister look crossed his face. The man's thick hand uncurled and Akechi's eyes widened at the sight of a pink pill nestled in the man's sweaty palm. Disgusting. He quickly identified it as a tab of ecstasy and grimaced. Apparently Shido hadn't informed the man that the last time someone gave Akechi a drug before they had sex he'd bitten off half of their tongue. The hotel staff had found him sitting in the middle of the double bed with blood streaming down his chin as he stared blankly at the screaming geezer writhing on the floor. Shido had not been impressed. 

He smiled thinly, "I don't think you need me to take that. I'll be good." He contemplated tacking a _daddy_ at the end of the sentence but he was still trying to play up his innocence. 

"You'll do what you're told." The old man smiled but it was a wolf's smile. 

Akechi felt his own crack slightly as he took the pill in-between two fingers and placed it on his tongue. Suddenly he was jostled forwards as an arm looped around his shoulder from behind, a palm resting against his chest. The movement forced him to swallow and he grit his teeth as he spun his head around, nearly knocking his face into a pair of glasses. 

"Detective! What a surprise to see you here," Kurusu's ever monotone yet strangely animated voice cut through the low jazz playing in the bar. 

"Kurusu, it's good to see you," Akechi lied and for once didn't even try to mask his impatience, "I happen to be in a meeting at the moment so-"

"Oh, a meeting," the curly haired boy repeated like it was the stupidest thing he'd ever been told, "do your meetings usually include old men touching your dick?" The black haired boy turned his phone around and showed a clear picture of the police chief's hand curled awkwardly tight around the top of Akechi's thighs. The chief's face was visible but Akechi's face was turned away. Still, it was quite incriminating. 

_Yes_ , Akechi thought but replied dryly, "is that really any of your business? I don't see why you're invested in what I do during my free time."

Kurusu grinned like he'd just been told a particularly funny joke and leaned in close, "I'm simply being a good samaritan, stopping an underage boy from being taken advantage of by someone's grandpa. Some people would call that justice." Kurusu turned to the man, "get out before I call the cops and I'll keep the picture to myself."

 _He is the cops,_ Akechi smiled into his palm as the old man paled and scrambled to stand up. Apparently even men at the top of the ladder were afraid of being seen as kiddie diddlers. Akechi didn't even watch the man leave, instead staring at his glass as Kurusu slid into the newly empty seat. This was not how he'd expected the night to go and there was little he hated more than things not going as planned. The effects of the absurdly potent alcohol was already dragging him into a hazy euphoria and that paired with the ecstasy he'd just swallowed was going to make whatever happened next an absolute clusterfuck. 

"Come here often?" Kurusu asked, his voice level and non-judgemental. Akechi wondered how hard the other boy had practiced in the mirror for it to come across like that. So blank and open like a well unlatched and ready to hear a person's deepest and darkest secrets. The detective refused to believe it came naturally. 

"First time," Akechi said and it came out normal enough. It wasn't even a lie. If he hadn't been ordered to, he wouldn't be found dead in a bar like this. "What about you? Do you make it a habit to poke your nose into other people's affairs on a daily or only a weekly basis?" His tone was bitingly sweet, dripping with acid, but the boy next to him only smiled. 

"You're not usually like this." The boy ignored the question. 

_No shit, I just had an absurd amount of alcohol and swallowed a pill that looked like ecstasy but for all I know it could have been anything._

"Sorry," he replied flatly, brushing some loose hairs behind his ear, "long day." 

What did Kurusu know about how he usually acted anyway? They were acquaintances, hardly more than strangers who occasionally exchanged pleasantries during their daily commutes. Kurusu was a means of getting information, of scoping out the public's opinion of the Phantom Thieves. A potential suspect. (Although Akechi wouldn't flatter him by looking into that possibility just yet.) Nobody knew how he really acted when he was alone in his apartment. How locked himself in the dark bathroom with no windows and let his mind wander back to the Tokyo bridge. How he imagined a blood red sky unraveling in front of his eyes as he fell and fell until he was weightless. 

"Akechi?" 

"Yes?" Akechi blinked back into the present and felt the bar sway as he swallowed back a wave of nausea. 

"Are you okay? I've asked you three times."

Anger snapped in him like a poorly trained dog, "I'm fine. I should head home now though. My apologies for this unfortunate encounter." Shido was going to yell his ear off. Maybe he'd get a new shiner at work. (He hoped not, the last one had been a pain to cover up for all of the interviews.) He stood up but a sudden pull of vertigo made him collapse against the bar counter instead. 

"The man gave him something," the bartender in glitzy drag informed Kurusu and Akechi would have been offended by the lack of privacy if he wasn't currently holding back sick from spewing over the counter. The neon bar lights were hazy and far too bright, like each one of them was a mini sun searing into his retinas. His skin felt like fever and his head was pounding at every tiny clink of glass echoing around the bar. 

"What a piece of shit. I know I just got here but do you mind if I skip work today to take him home?"

The woman put down the glass she was drying and eyed Akechi suspiciously before she waved, "it's better than him passing out here and someone asking questions. I'm not paying you though, this ain't a charity."

"Thanks Lala," Kurusu said as his arm wrapped around Akechi's shoulders in a way that was far too natural. Did Kurusu go around touching people like this normally? Why did everything he do seem so practiced and smooth? Where Akechi only talked to people like they were cameras, Kurusu seemed to know how to get under a person's very skin and meld himself to them with some kind of invisible bond. 

Akechi felt his face contort, "don't touch me!" _Shit_. He couldn't ruin all of his hard work by losing face here. Then again, Kurusu was just one person, not the whole of Japan. It probably didn't matter what the boy thought of him. Still, it was the principle of the matter. "Sorry, I just. I feel sick," he saved the previous outburst as he covered his mouth with his hand. He really did feel like he was going to vomit so it wasn't hard to look convincing. 

"Let's go to the bathroom," the black haired boy suggested and Akechi didn't even protest as he was half-dragged to the tiny room at the back of the bar. There weren't even two separate bathrooms. Just one, for all types of fucked up people to vomit and break down in. Deft hands held his hair back as he kneeled over the toilet, sweat dripping down his cheeks and neck as everything inside him felt like a tumultuous bed of molten lava. His knuckles went white as he threw up and he knew he probably looked like a haggard cat coughing up a wad of fur. A hand was stroking the back of his head the way one might placate a pet so perhaps he wasn't the only one thinking that. _Disgusting_. It was good he didn't really care about anything other than Shido's head resting on a mantle somewhere. 

Right. 

He coughed and spit into the toilet a last time before he slid back down on the floor and pressed down the handle. The sick washed down and he pushed his forehead into his arms, trying to tame the way his stomach was doing rolls. Whatever the man had given him, it wasn't the "good stuff." In fact, he wasn't sure the man hadn't intended to murder him with the way he was sweating so hard his skin might as well have been a slip 'n slide. 

"Got it all out?" A gentle voice asked and Akechi saw a very vivid image of him stabbing Kurusu's chest ten times until all of that unnecessary care and pity flooded out of his lifeless carcass. "Yes," he replied but it sounded more like a hoarse whisper. Surprisingly strong hands helped pull him off the ground and they stumbled to the sink where Akechi gargled water a few times and cleaned up his face. The makeup washed off and he sighed as he used a paper towel to wipe of the remnants on his eyes and chin. It hadn't even lasted half as long as he'd expected it to. 

"You done playing nurse yet?" He asked, too tired to even put any bite into it or gift wrap it up in a more pleasant way. He sat up on the marble counter, shirt undone two buttons, hair a humid mess, face bare and ugly, and decided that he'd have rather been fucked unconscious in a pool of his own vomit than be in the bathroom with Kurusu. "Just leave." 

"Not until you tell me what you were doing with him." 

"Blackmail? I thought you'd be above something like that, Kurusu," Akechi smirked, letting his arm dangle into one of the white sinks. He wanted to turn it on and feel cold water run over his overheated skin but he couldn't get his fingers to cooperate. 

"I'm protective of my friends, what can I say?"

"I'm not your friend." That much was true. 

Kurusu stood in front of him, grey eyes piercing even in the flickering bathroom lights, "I know we have something. It's not my fault if you continue to reject it. Our bond."

Akechi felt like he was going to be sick again. There was something so certain and honest about the boy in front of him. Like he'd walked through hell and come out unscathed. All of the darkness washed off of him while when Akechi tried to do the same it just sank into his pores and filled him from the inside out. Maybe he could lose his facade this once, use his intoxication as an excuse. 

"What do you think? I was going to have sex with him. I have a _type_." He wanted to laugh. The great Akechi liking older men with god complexes? That was a riot. All of them were just more pathetic versions of Shido. If anything, he'd relish in slicing every one of their thick throats. 

"That's not your type," Kurusu said like it was a fact. Like he had an answer book in front of him that let him know exactly what to say. 

"You don't know shit about me." Akechi met his eyes with a challenging smirk, letting the expletive roll off his tongue smoothly even if his throat was wrecked. 

"Maybe, but I know that _I'm_ your type," the black haired boy rested his palms on the counter on either side of Akechi's hips and for a second the detective forgot how to move. How to breathe. He could smell the warm and slightly bitter scent of coffee wafting off of Kurusu's shirt. It was hard to tell if it was pleasant or too overbearing in his current state. His skin buzzed with something hot and undeniable, an itch moving its way down his spine to his stomach. Without thinking about it, he let his body do what it'd been ready to do anyway, and leaned into the heat in front of him. His legs wrapped around Kurusu's hips and pulled him in roughly against the counter, attaching his lips to the raven's neck messily. The coffee smell was nice, he decided, as he lapped at the other boy's skin like it was water. Pressed his canines into the soft flesh. 

"See?" Kurusu whispered, his thigh pressing against the hardon in Akechi's pants. 

"It's the drug." A lie. Akechi knew that Kurusu was as insufferably handsome as he was amazing in every other aspect. Kurusu hummed before locking his fingers into Akechi's hair and pulling him back from the bruising hickie on his neck, "but you were looking at him like he was an annoyance. You're looking at me like you want to consume me." 

Akechi didn't have a witty or put-together response to that. In fact, all of his thoughts seemed to start with Kurusu's dick in his mouth and end up with him passed out on the bathroom tiles. "Just pull your pants down already." 

"No, you can't consent." Kurusu pulled away and Akechi stared at him, wide-eyed, and wondered how he'd missed that the black haired boy was a sadist on top of everything else. He'd never been rejected before and the sting of it was almost as bad as the blood threatening to pool in his mouth from his throat. He looked in the mirror and almost laughed. 

"I get it. I look like trash." It wasn't even self-pity. He had _eyes_. With a sigh, he leaned against the cool glass of the mirrors and let his mind float for a bit. Usually when he was drugged it was in a bed with someone pounding him into a new dimension, not sat in a cold bathroom with a high schooler trying to _reason_ with him of all things. He couldn't use his brain when it was off floating somewhere to the left of the Andromeda galaxy. "If you're not going to fuck me then get out."

Kurusu seemed to consider him for a second before his hand wrapped around Akechi's clenched fist. 

"How about we both get out of here?"

* * *


	2. The Fool

_**2\. The Fool** _

* * *

  
  
Akechi jolted awake when his mouth started flooding with saliva and he barely made it to the trashcan on the other side of his bedroom before he emptied his stomach for the umpteenth time. That chief had definitely intended to thoroughly humiliate him, if nothing else. Akechi hadn't even gotten a good high for his troubles. Just pain, a brief bout of horniness, and then more pain. 

The room was almost pitch black but he could still make out the familiar shadows of his dresser and bed. Cars lazily drifted by on the highway outside of the window and the _click click_ of a passing subway train echoed in the silence of the room. He couldn't remember getting back to his apartment. All he remembered was Kurusu's stupidly smug face in the bathroom and his own mess in the toilet as it flushed down. Everything else was a washed-out blank. He sat on the floor for a while before he was sure he was really done and then pushed himself to his feet, a hand firmly planted on the wall to hold himself steady. 

He needed to brush his teeth, scrub the smell of vomit from his body, check his messages, do all of those normal things. He felt along the wall to the bathroom and turned the sink handle, watching how the water rushed down the drain for a few seconds before he splashed some on his face and wet his toothbrush. Sink off. Shower on. He sat on the shower floor because he didn't trust himself not to fall over as he brushed his teeth. Two birds with one stone. When he spit out into the shower drain there was a bit of blood mixed in with the toothpaste and he hoped that he'd still be able to talk at his meeting in the morning. 

"Te- st." He tried and the word sounded breathy and wrong. Next time he'd insist on only meeting up with Shido's colleagues during the weekend. He rubbed soap through his hair half-heartedly and washed it out, scrubbed a washcloth down his arms and legs until they were red, and shaved before he turned off the water and stepped out onto the tiles. A puddle formed beneath his feet as he slowly towel dried his body, eyes trying to drift shut every few seconds. Mechanically, he went through the rest of his morning routine as if on auto-pilot. 

A good thirty minutes had passed by the time he left the bathroom with a damp towel wrapped around his waist. The clock on his side table read 6:13AM and he considered falling back asleep again before he thought better of it. There was a mess he had to clean up. He felt around the sheets for his phone and frowned when he couldn't find it on the bed or on the table. With any luck it hadn't slipped from his pocket on the tenuous way back to his apartment. He pulled his uniform on and felt a stale kind of comfort in the familiar clothes. In the routine. 

When he walked into the living and saw Kurusu lounging back on his couch, Akechi's cellphone in hand, the detective wasn't even that surprised. It'd be too convenient for the boy to have just dropped him off and left. No, everything always had to be more frustrating than it had any right to be. 

"Good morning," he smiled pleasantly as he forced himself to be child prodigy Akechi who was perfect and who did not brush his teeth on the floor of the shower at 6AM. Kurusu looked up with a small wave before his eyes flicked back down. Akechi's phone was password protected so the raven had in all likelihood used the face recognition feature on him while he slept. Amazing. 

"I'm quite sure it's illegal to go through someone's phone without their permission." He hated how scratchy his voice sounded. 

"It's also illegal for you to take questionable drugs, drink alcohol, and sleep with guys over eighteen but we all have our line I guess." 

Irritation lapped at his insides but Akechi temped it down like he did every day of his life, "why are you doing this?" 

"Doing what?"

"We hardly know each other. Why are you in my apartment, looking through my phone? Why are you still _here_?" He could play the part of a worried kid, even if he knew that there were at least twelve ways he could kill Kurusu within a minute if things didn't work out favorably. When he peered over Kurusu's shoulder he noted with not a little anxiety that he had five missed calls. All of them no doubt from his father. 

"Your messages are rather interesting," Kurusu continued nonchalantly, completely ignoring all of the questions, "didn't expect the detective prince to sleep around for favors, but I guess that just goes to show that you never really know someone." 

"Until you snoop through their phone." 

"Until you snoop through their phone," Kurusu agreed with a small smirk. 

Akechi grabbed for said phone but Kurusu swung it out of the way, forcing Akechi to bend over cushions awkwardly. _I'm going to murder this boy_ , he thought not at all distantly. "So you're going to spread that I'm a whore to the whole metropolitan area? That would boost support for the Phantom Thieves I suppose, although I didn't expect you to be such a hardcore fanboy."

Kurusu looked vaguely offended, "I wouldn't do that. I just needed to find out who was making you to do this stuff." 

"So you can do _what_? I'm not some victim in need of saving. I could walk away from it all at any time." That was true. Leaving wasn't an option though when his purpose for living was still acting like he had Tokyo in the palm of his hand. Was still parading around like he was immortal and not one misstep from being on the bad end of Akechi's gun. Kurusu's gray eyes flicked up to meet his for the second time that morning and they almost looked translucent in the pale light; like a shallow pond with no depth. Still, Akechi knew better than anyone that peaceful surfaces could hide turbulent waters. 

"You won't, so someone has to do it for you. Anyway, I have everything I need now so you can have this back," Kurusu tossed the phone towards him and spread out on the couch, stretching out languidly like a cat. In the block of sunlight falling from the window his hair lit up along the frizzy edges like a halo; a golden ring around his somewhat plain face. Kurusu wasn't attractive in the most traditional sense. He was attractive because he moved with the confidence of a panther, could charm anyone into adoring him with a few well-placed compliments, and stood like he could carry himself out of a fire and someone else too bundled up on his back. He was reliable, and people liked constants. 

Akechi caught the phone and slid it into his pocket. There was no point in calling Shido back with someone else in his apartment. 

"Would you like some coffee?" He asked because his mouth was on autopilot while his brain raced with how exactly to dispose of the irritating boy in front of him. 

"That'd be nice. No sugar please," Kurusu said around a yawn and curled back up on the cushions. _I should poison it_. Unfortunately, Akechi didn't keep ricin in his cupboards. He did keep a bag of sugar in there though. Who drank their coffee without sugar? Psychopaths. The coffee maker hummed to life and he mechanically went through his kitchen routine but doubled the amount of food for his unwelcome guest. Four eggs instead of two, two slices of toasted bread instead of one. One peeled orange, split right through the middle. The coffee maker beeped and he switched out the full cup for an empty one. In ten minutes both of their meals were prepared without a second wasted and he set down one plate with a cup of coffee on the living room table before he wandered back to the kitchen to eat his own breakfast in peace. 

"Thanks," Kurusu smiled and the way he said it actually felt like he meant it. Like nobody had ever done something so kind for him. Akechi knew that was a lie but it was almost impressive how the black haired boy knew how to string people along into thinking that they were special. That was probably how he'd amassed the group of followers Akechi sometimes saw him hanging out with in the Accessway. People liked feeling important, even just to one person. Akechi bit into his toast and his teeth tore the sunny yellow yolk of the egg laid out on top of it. Drips of it slid off the sides of the bread to the plate, ran over his fingers as he closed his eyes and just enjoyed the rich flavor on his tongue. Eggs were a symbol of life, but also a reminder that everyone started out so fragile and breakable. 

He wiped his mouth on a napkin and washed his hands at the sink before putting his dirty plate and mug in as well. A glance across the room told him that the other boy was still slowly working through his meal so he left him in peace while he gathered his school supplies and case. In the full-length mirror propped up in his room he made sure he looked presentable before he walked back into the living area. 

"I have to go to work now but please make yourself comfortable." _Make yourself at home! Like you haven't already. What's mine is obviously yours_. Akechi squashed the quips down with a well-oiled smile. His meeting was in thirty minutes and with the Tokyo morning rush he knew he had to leave immediately to make it on time. After that he'd take a fast train to school and hope that any homework he hadn't been able to complete would be simple enough to do standing up in the train car. When he got home he'd have time to figure out a good way to get rid of Kurusu. 

"Have a nice day," Kurusu mumbled, eyes shut and lashes fanned out on his cheeks, "maybe we'll run into each other at the station later." 

_We won't, I'm going to avoid you like the fucking plague you are._ "Perhaps." 

* * *

Futaba glanced over the text messages Kurusu had forwarded to her throwaway number and clicked her tongue at the rather damning contents. If she posted any one of them with the confirmation that it'd been taken from the Akechi's phone the internet would have a hay-day. Unfortunately, Kurusu wasn't interested in tarnishing the detective's already somewhat questionable reputation. He was interested in the identity of the man sending messages to the detective. Of course she could figure out the identity of the sender—she wasn't considered a virtual assassin for nothing—but she wasn't usually in the business of helping out their enemies. Still, if the leader thought that Akechi needed help then he probably really did and who was she to withhold her talents from someone in need? She cracked her knuckles and pushed a stack of chips into her mouth as she got to work.

Ten minutes later she texted Kurusu the man's name and profession with an emoticon that pointedly said _I've done my duty now let the praise flow_. 

> Masayoshi Shido - Cabinet Minister (Running for Prime Minister) 

Her phone chimed a few seconds later with a "you're the best" followed closely by a redeemable $50 digital Steam gift card. Their leader knew her so well. 

* * *

"What can I help you with today, leader?" Makoto smiled wryly at the curly haired boy leaning nonchalantly against the library bookshelf next to her. She hadn't heard him get close but that was just his modus operandi. The boy came and went as he pleased, running himself breathless with all the things he tried to get up to in a day; stuffing every hour with as much as he could fit into it without bursting. Silently arriving and leaving was just how Kurusu operated. 

"I was hoping you could help me look into someone," Kurusu examined a book on the shelf but she could tell it was more for something to do with his hands than genuine interest in the contents. It wasn't that obvious, but Makoto had learned over the months that the raven had a hard time concentrating on just one thing at once; he got fidgety fast. 

She shut the book she'd been perusing through and folded it in her hands, "and who would that be?"

"A man named Masayoshi Shido. He's running for prime minister." Kurusu spit out the man's name like it personally offended him and that just made Makoto more curious about the task. It wasn't often that Kurusu showed bouts of emotion, his feelings usually submerged under a pleasant mask of apathy. 

"I take it he's a new target?"

"Looks like it," Kurusu scrubbed his hand through his thick curls and then let it fall back to the side. 

"It's bothering you," she observed, looking at the tense lines of his back and shoulders, the cold-set focus in his eyes. 

"This one is a little personal. In more ways than one. Akechi had a black eye on the train platform this morning. Not even his makeup could cover it."

Makoto filled in the blanks, "and you think this man, Shido, did it to him?" 

He made a sound of affirmation, "the whole situation is worse than I originally assumed." 

There was obviously more to the story but she knew better than to press for information Kurusu wasn't openly offering. She memorised the man's name and let a small smile grace her face, "I'll get you all you need to know." 

Kurusu dropped to his knee dramatically and pressed a chaste kiss to her wrist in a move that was more befitting of Joker than a boy in a school uniform but she was charmed nonetheless. "I'm in your debt, Queen," he grinned and despite his polite words he looked slightly feral whenever his teeth showed. It fit him. 

"Joker," she said in leu of a goodbye and watched him slip back into the shadows of the school. Strange boy. She flicked open her phone. 

Masayoshi Shido had secrets and she was going to find them.

  
She ended up finding out some secrets about the detective prince along the way. She sent Futaba the details and waited for confirmation of her fears. They came an hour later in an email the size of a short novel. Futaba demanded a payment for her troubles of two pizzas: delivered right to her doorstep. 

* * *

The bruise still stung, a full eight hours later on his commute home. 

Usually the pain ebbed away by lunch but this one had been brutal. Had been intentionally deep to serve as a reminder. At least the limp had stopped being prominent after an hour. He turned his bruised side to the door when he noticed some people pulling out their phones and pointing them at him. The foundation had done an alright job, but he didn't trust the swelling to not show up in photos. By the time his stop came around it felt like everyone was staring at him. It was hard to breathe but it helped to think about them all dead in a bloody mess of tangled limbs on the floor. Violence usually helped clear his thoughts. He wasn't defenseless, no matter how small he felt. He stepped off the train and slid anonymously into the crowd of people pushing to get in. Got lost in the sea of heads and the bustle of the city. 

_People got lost all the time._

By the time he made it to his apartment his hands were shaking in his pockets. Usually he'd go to Mementos to blow off steam but he had work to do. Reports to read, pointless homework to slog through, plans to arrange. He slid his shoes off and pushed them neatly against the wall before he stripped his jacket off and hung it up. His suitcase was left on the kitchen table as he shuffled into the bathroom and sat down on the toilet. With a finger he tiredly scraped the old semen from inside of him into the toilet bowl and flushed it down before taking a short shower. The kind that didn't involve getting his hair wet and only utilized two of his many soap bottles. The water was so hot it burned upon touching his skin but he liked it like that, where it felt like all the grime was melting off of him. He liked to feel clean.

The doorbell rang as he was getting dressed and he hastily pulled on a pair of black pants and a white shirt before walking to the front door. It wasn't often that he had visitors and when he did it was never for a pleasant get-together. A glance through the peep hole informed him that his guest from that morning had decided to stop by again. He contemplated not answering but then again Kurusu saved him a lot of time and trouble by coming back. Like this he didn't have to hunt the boy down himself. 

"You've returned," Akechi smiled thinly as he opened the door, subtly scanning the hallway to make sure nobody else saw the black haired boy disappear into his apartment. Kurusu's ever-confident eyes met his and he almost had to look away because he knew that this close his bruise was obvious. It felt strangely naked, more so than how he felt with his legs pushed up against some old man's shoulders. At least like that the men were just judging him for being a slut, not judging him for hiding a bruise given to him by his dad. 

"So I have," Kurusu smiled but it held a sad edge to it that made Akechi's eye twitch. He stepped to the side and the other boy walked in, toeing his shoes off by the ones already there. 

"So what brings you back here? Not that I don't enjoy your company but I am quite busy."

They sat on opposite ends of the couch and Akechi watched Kurusu idly pick at a loose thread on his sweater, "I thought you could use some help."

"I don't need help," he laughed. 

"Really? Because after looking into Shido it seems like he's a bad man, and you just happen to be his unfortunate offspring. You can't tell me that you could easily untangle yourself from his plans. I can help you. You don't need to sleep around to help him win votes or threaten his competition anymore. That's not you."

Kurusu knew. That threw an unfortunate wrench in both of their plans. Even if the raven didn't know the whole truth yet, it was only a matter of time before he connected the dots and realized that a mysteriously high number of high ranking men with dissenting opinions mysteriously wound up dead. It didn't take a detective to figure that out.

The poor interloper raised an eyebrow and Akechi did his best to hide that he had to kill him now. He was sure his smile looked particularly unhinged because Kurusu nervously flicked his eyes towards the door. Just his luck. The one guy Akechi had ever voluntarily befriended happened to be an idiot who didn't know how to mind his own fucking business. For a second he really did let his mask slip away from him as he remembered all the pointless conversations. The weekly _hello, the weather sure is balmy today, isn't it? Great day for a bike ride. Have you been to the new cafe on central street? It's really trendy at the moment._ All of it for nothing. Kurusu stood up and Akechi did too, instantly cutting the boy off. 

"Well, it seems that we're at an impasse Kurusu. I was considering letting you live but I'm afraid that's no longer on the table." He kept his smile in place as he stepped forward. The black haired boy's eyes widened a fraction but he didn't look all too startled by the fact that he'd somehow wandered into a lion's den. He'd always been a strange person though; even someone as devoid of human interaction like Akechi could see that. Another step. 

"Akechi, you don't-"

Akechi kneed Kurusu hard in the stomach, relishing in the surprised groan that tumbled out of the boy's lips as he collapsed onto the wood floor. With expert precision, he manhandled the other onto his stomach and bound his wrists together tightly with his tie as his victim struggled against his firm grip. Kurusu glared from his position on the floor and it sent a shiver of arousal down Akechi's spine. He had warped tastes, who would have guessed? Probably every therapist and their mother. 

"Didn't anyone ever tell you to let sleeping dogs lie? If you knew something was wrong then you should have just kept your mouth shut about it instead of poking your nose where it doesn't belong," to punctuate his point, Akechi rubbed his socked foot against his captive's cheek, slamming it against the floor. It was kind of a shame, Kurusu was such nice eye candy on his daily commute to school. 

"They might have said something like that," Kurusu gritted out before he spit blood onto the floor. Of course. Just one more thing to clean up. The whole house would be washed over with bleach by the time he finished at this rate. Akechi sighed and wiped the sweat from his forehead onto his elbow before he walked into the kitchen and took out a plastic bag from under the sink. Suffocation didn't even hurt that much and had the benefit of being relatively tidy. It was a form of suicide Akechi was still in the process of considering. 

He kneeled down next to the black haired boy, "you being so invasive just created a hard time for the both of us. Do you have any idea how annoying it is to find a place to hide a body in Tokyo? There's not even enough room for junkies out there." He opened the bag and let air balloon it open. Kurusu licked his split lip and Akechi hated him for looking collected even right then. Even when there was a thin trail of blood dripping down his chin and his glasses where fractured on the right side he looked so damn cool. 

"So it's true. You killed all of those politicians." 

"Ah, so you suspected it and still came to pay me a home visit? I applaud your bravery although I'm sure most people would call it stupidity." 

"Well, my friend merely suggested the idea but I suppose now you just confirmed it. She'll be pleased that her hypothesis was correct." 

_Friend._

Akechi closed his eyes and counted to ten really slowly. He'd never actually been to a therapist but he knew how to take calming breaths. Kurusu hadn't respected his privacy when it came to his phone or apartment so of course he'd just go around spreading Akechi's dirty laundry everywhere. It'd been stupid to assume the other boy had any sense of ethics when it came to that. No normal person would walk into the house of someone who may or may not have murdered a handful of men. He supposed it had already been established that Kurusu was anything but sane. Insane or not, it would be stupid of Akechi to murder him in cold blood when there was someone bound to come sniffing after him. The other murders couldn't be proved, but killing Kurusu in the real world would leave traces. 

"Oh."

Kurusu clicked his tongue mundanely in response, "yeah."

Nothing ever went as planned. Not ever in his life. 

Akechi breathed out a laugh and leaned against the back of the couch, drawing his legs in as he thought. After a few minutes of thinking through every viable outcome his brain moved on to other things. His eyes flicked down to the bag. Such a flimsy piece of plastic could kill a person. His pale, tiny hands could too. Had, in fact, killed many even if it wasn't strictly in the physical plane. Life was precarious. How he'd managed to live seventeen years when his insides felt like glass was beyond him. 

He reached over and loosened the knot on the tie. If Kurusu was smart he'd go to the police and report the attempted murder. Shido would take care of it, of course, but it would still leave a paper trail. Then again, his father wouldn't be above making the boy's life a living hell so perhaps even that was a risky plan. Kurusu was sworn to secrecy and helpless whether he knew it or not. He was just like Akechi in that sense. 

Kurusu squirmed his hands out of the slack binds and rubbed his wrists as he sat up. "You were going to murder me with a _plastic bag?_ "

Akechi shrugged, "it's clean." 

"Still, that's such an awful way to die."

_To who?_ It wasn't softly drifting off during a nap but it wasn't that bad all things considered. 

"No flair at all," Kurusu grinned and it looked feral. He really was insane, wasn't he? 

"Who are you?" Akechi asked tiredly, scooting over a bit when the boy sat down next to him. All the adrenaline was gone and he just felt weighed down by all of the responsibilities stacking up on his shoulders. More messes to clean, more plans to web together. 

"Not that you could prove it, but I'm going to change your heart. Here's your calling card, Goro." Kurusu slid a red and black card across the floor towards him. The logo stared up at him the same as it had at work while viewing the previous calling cards. 

"Isn't this proof? I could turn this in and the police would pull you in for questioning for sure." 

"And then they'd find nothing else and let me go. That said, I don't fancy a trip to the station and I _do_ still have that one photo of you and your grandpa." 

Akechi snorted. It was undignified but perhaps he was a little past the point where something as small as that mattered. They really were at an impasse, weren't they? He kicked himself for not looking into Kurusu as a potential member of the Phantom Thieves earlier. He should have gone with his gut instinct. He'd known from the start that Kurusu was a certain brand of insane. The kind that was completely unhinged but in a way that made sense if one viewed the world through their particular spin on it. Kurusu cared a lot about "justice" but the means of obtaining it were allowed to teeter on the edge of immoral. In short, he was the perfect leader for a band of vigilantes. 

"Feel free to try. What do you think my palace looks like?" Akechi mused, not sure himself. He couldn't conjure up a clear image of anywhere he felt safe, anywhere where he felt like he had power. He had no home. No castle. Like this, all of the cards were on the table, weren't they? They both knew what the other was and neither of them had a way to prove it to anyone on the outside. Anything went in the Metaverse but Tokyo had rules. 

"Probably like Oracle's," Kurusu said after a few seconds. If he was surprised to learn that Akechi knew about palaces he didn't show it. 

"Who?" 

Kurusu smiled but it looked a little sad, "like a big grave." 

Oh. "Perhaps." It probably looked more like a tomb for Shido with a smaller one off to the side for himself. He could picture a room filled with five-hundred decapitated heads, all of them with Shido's features, morphed grotesquely. The shadows would be strong. Maybe the thieves would perish before they ever reached his treasure. What would that even be? A knife? A gun? Shido's heart? He ruminated for a few minutes before Kurusu put a hand on his shoulder and looked him dead in the eyes. 

"Help me find it." 

Akechi laughed. Loudly. It was his real laugh, which meant it sounded hiccupy. "I'm not helping anyone until Shido's dead." 

"We're not killing anyone, but we can steal his treasure. We were planning on doing that anyway, regardless of how this meeting went." 

"This can't be a meeting, I'm not sucking your dick," the detective joked dryly, surprising himself with the way it flowed so easily, "and I _am_ going to kill him regardless of what you guys think you're going to do."

Kurusu huffed, "you're really stubborn."

"That's rich, coming from the most stubborn person I've ever met." 

"Then how about the two most stubborn people alive join forces to get through Shido's palace? At the end we'll try to stop you from killing him but if you can do it, well, it's your win." 

Akechi rested his chin on his knees as he thought about it. It was almost a requirement to have more than one person to infiltrate Shido's palace since it was the most secure one Akechi had ever seen. Alone he couldn't make any progress. If they were actually able to steal Shido's treasure (or, in Akechi's case, shoot the man's head clean off of his shoulders) then the thieves would do their best to change his heart as well. He turned the thought of that around in his head and decided it wouldn't really matter anyway once Shido was gone. If things went belly-up he could always turn on them anyway and get back on his father's good side with the information he'd retrieved. 

"Fine." 

* * *

They slouched in a safe room and Ann and Makoto quietly discussed together in the back while Ryuji downed a whole bottle of water and Haru and Yusuke busied themselves with organizing the treasure they'd found. Both of them had to shoo Morgana away multiple times because the cat was an absolute menace when it came to anything remotely shiny.

Kurusu licked his lip and looked over to where Akechi—Crow—was sitting alone in the corner of the room, staring off into nothing. It was like he turned off his body when he did that, took a break from living. It was happening more and more often the deeper they got into Shido's palace. A coping mechanism, maybe. Or he just didn't want to be in that room right then with the rest of the Phantom Thieves. None of the others had revealed their true identities to the detective but they were still wary of him and it showed. That wasn't right, Kurusu thought. All of them were bound by fate and it didn't matter what Akechi had done because ultimately he was one of them, whether he knew it or not. They were connected for a reason and Kurusu was going to figure out what that reason was. 

He slid against the wall next to Akechi and let their shoulders bump together briefly, "tired?"

"No, just thinking," the brown haired boy muttered, eyes still trained on the wall. 

"How's your cheek?"

The detective turned at the sudden change in topic and raised an eyebrow. The swelling had gone after two days and the bruising was hidden securely under a layer of tone correction and foundation. "Fine." 

"Shido hasn't suspected anything yet? I have the feeling that he's even more violent when cornered." 

"No. When he does I'll probably be sent on more pointless ventures into the Metaverse to calm his nerves. I suppose more bruises could lie in the stars as well."

Kurusu let his gloved hand rise up to the other boy's cheek and their eyes met before Akechi turned his head away. "Don't do that. Pity doesn't suit you." Kurusu snorted quietly but let his hand fall to his side again, "wasn't pity. You look good a little beat up. Suits you better than the mask you always wear."

"This one?" Akechi's fingers skimmed under the rim of his red mask. 

"The other one."

Akechi smiled wryly for a brief second and the leader counted that as a win. He pushed himself off the wall with an extravagant curl of his cape, "let's get going."

* * *

A glass skittered dangerously across the countertop and both of them stopped pulling at each other for a second to make sure it didn't fall. It settled and Akechi yanked Kurusu's soft shirt downwards, forcing their lips together again in a painful clash of skin and teeth. "Slower," Kurusu muttered while the detective did no such thing and tilted the raven's head to the side to get better access to his tongue. There was a slowly seeping cut on the other boy's neck where Akechi's nails had scraped too harshly but neither of them minded it as the leader's hands forced the detective's wrists against the counter. 

"You're going to make a mess, _detective_. Is listening really that difficult?" 

"I am, in fact, not at the beck and call of your every order, _leader_. Maybe that's surprising to you." His hands stopped wriggling in their binds and instead he pressed his hips against the front of the raven's pants. Their eyes shut briefly at the contact and nails bit into the detective's wrists. 

"A little," Kurusu's grin showed off a teasing hint of a sharp canine, "usually people just do what I tell them too." 

The detective's eyebrow twitched minutely in annoyance and he kicked out the raven's leg from beneath him, bringing them both to wooden floor behind the cafe bar. Hands got tangled in each other's hair as they rolled against the back wall. "Bet you do this with all of the people you're _bonded_ with. Is that how you get them to be so loyal?"

Kurusu smirked—damn him—and shrugged, "jealous?" 

"Where's a condom?" Akechi rolled his eyes as his hand slipped into Kurusu's pocket, feeling around, "you probably have one on you, right?" 

His fingertips brushed against the ridged edge of a condom packet and he pulled it out smugly, tossing it onto the raven's chest. Apparently he wasn't the only one who slept around. (Even if it was in entirely different contexts.) That was okay. It wasn't like they were dating or even in the realm of caring about each other enough for that. They were just two teenagers with too much pent up sexual frustration and an affinity for making bad choices. 

The condom was squashed between them as Kurusu's arms looped around the detective's neck, pulling him back into a kiss. Legs caging the leader's hips, Akechi let his tongue trace the lips beneath his own, let himself map out the teeth in Kurusu's mouth. 

* * *

"There isn't going to be a treasure in my palace, you know. It'll just be a hundred shadows defending an empty altar." 

Akechi held a hand up to the dark ceiling and heard his breath come out too loud in the quiet. Kurusu's fingertip traced his ribs like he was dissecting his skin.

"Then let's make one." 

* * *


End file.
